Mahindra Powerol looks for tech partner

Power solution provider Mahindra Powerol, part of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, is looking for a technology supplier for its proposed manufacturing of solar rechargeable inverters/batteries.

After launching the high power range of UPS (2.5 kVA to 5kVA) and battery here, P Palaniappan, business head, said, “we are planning to manufacture solar rechargeable inverters/batteries. We are testing some prototypes and also talking to four companies for technology tie-ups.”

The company is planning to bring down the product cost, which is ten times higher than the conventional UPS inverters/batteries. "Our plan is to consolidate our operations in the six states the company operates,” he said. The UPS division was selling in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Bihar and would become a pan-India player by 2014, he added.

The company has about 2,000 dealers in Tamil Nadu and a total of 1,000 in Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar. It is planning to add 7,000 dealer selling points by this fiscal.

The company has three manufacturing facilities in Padappai, near Chennai, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh with a total capacity of 65,000 units per month for home UPS. “The UPS business contributes around 3 percent to the division’s revenue and we are planning to double it,” said Palaniappan.

The revenue from this division is around Rs 1,000 crore, a major portion of which comes from the diesel gensets. “We have changed our focus towards retail and other segments for diesel gensets after the slump in the orders from the telecom sector for powering mobile towers,” he said.